Tag: extreme weather

Satyrdaz Theme Music

It’s the darkest of times, it’s the dumbest of times, it’s Trumpiest of times. Borrowed from Mock Paper Scissors.

Bold sunshine shoots the windows today, Satyrda, November 15, 2025. 52 F now, the other numbers are 65 and 42 F for the day’s highs and low. Sunshine and blue are dominating like an NFL team playing a high school JV team. Lovely to rest my eyes on the panorama and what remains of the colorful leaves after the wind tore through over the last several days.

I was walking yesterday evening. Sidewalks and paths are wealthy with discarded leaves. I kicked ’em up as I passed through them like I was six years old. I always enjoy making that ruckus among the leaves. Meanwhile, I deliberately summoned the music to “New York State of Mind” by Billy Joel. My lyrics were adjusted to “Ashlandia State of Mind” and our local streets, activities, and centers of interest. After singing it last night and gazing out on this morning’s view, The Neurons resurrected the song for my morning mental music stream.

The Trump Regime has made statements about demanding all SNAP recipients re-enroll. They believe the debunked myths that SNAP is corruption riddled. 42,000,000 are receiving SNAP. The huge effort to re-enroll them all will fall on the states and the recipients. Recipients who are often children, working poor, struggling lower middle class, elderly and disabled. If this doesn’t scream, THE CRUELTY IS THE POINT, what does?

With the Trump Epstein Shutdown ended after a record run, attention is swinging hard to the Epstein files and Trump’s place among their annals. Dizzy Donny is displaying deeply demented demeanor. Many like me speculate that he knows the terrible things the files will reveal. Here’s hoping for the best.

BTW, that idea about 50-year mortgages is crackers. Won’t do much for helping affordability. Folks still need down payments, need the income for paying property taxes and insurance, and insurance is going higher and higher in many regions due to more extreme weather — but please, let us not say anything about climate change. Heaven forfend the TACO Regime even thinks about doing anything about that. See, with mega AI centers being planned and built, pollution will go yet higher. Demands on water will go yet higher. As will demands on electricity, causing the price of everything to increase, crushing affordability, but never mind all that. Realizing those things and planning to address those things takes something other than greed, lying, and cruelty, and that’s all the Trump Regime has.

The day is calling and the coffee is singing. My hope remains that peace and grace lift themselves up with a mighty shake and come around to yours and mine. Here we go again. Cheers

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Thursday’s Theme Music

Mood: coffeetrippin’

Today’s theme music is “One Thing Leads to Another” by the Fixx out of 1983. This new wave offering occupants my morning mental music stream due to Jan Resseger’s excellent posts about Ohio and Catholic Republicans’ relentless efforts to undermine public education. They’ve been working on this for decades. Along the way, they’re also trying to First Amendment Establishment Clause’s prohibition of state sponsored religion. While they were about it, they also made money off it. Classic GOP trifecta: make money, undermine the Consitution, and promote their brand of existence to the detriment of others.

While that’s one reason for the Fixx’s residency in my head, there is also climate change. I was thinking about it in conjuntion with the California fires. Dryer conditions and high winds fostered by climate change promote conditions ripe for disaster. California is just the latest example. One thing leads to another. Of course, reading online comments about it, many right-wingers state the problem is that the state didn’t rake the forests and/or didn’t take measures in their forests to reduce the chance of wildfire. They are completely oblivious to the locales of these fires in cities. But then, the right-wing’s increasingly narrow sources for news, lower education, and flawed critical thinking is another example of one thing leads to another. It’s why the United States must suffer with a convicted felon, documented liar, and unrepentant conman as POTUS. One thing leads to another.

It’s Thursday, January 16, 2025. Winds are calm and the sky is blue in my scope of sight. The temperature has been climbing tick by tick from its overnight low of 30 to its present 35 F ever since the sun began singing its song of dawn. Today’s high should be measured in the mid-fifties. Reached 52 F yesterday, and it was a pleasant, satisfying experience.

Saw my ortho surgeon yesterday. He declared me healed from my surgery and the issues which triggered it. I agree. I’m still dealing with bilateral lower leg, ankle, and foot swelling brought on by lymphedema, but I’m dealing with that as well. Wear compression socks each day. Also apply Ugli Butter CBD Cream to my legs, ankles, and feet. That also does a wondrous job of reducing swelling and inflammation. I also exercise the areas multiple times throughout the day, indulge in serious hydrating, and elevate my feet at night. Impressive difference is being noted throught this combo. I still need to address and attack the root causes, though.

Coffee and I hacked out another kitchen treaty. This calls for me to brew the grinded coffee, treat it with heated water, and then imbibe it. As part of its side of the agreement, coffee will bless me with an enjoyable experience and increase my energy levels and focus.

Hope you have an awesome Thursday. Remember, courage. Here’s the music. Cheers

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Friday’s Wandering Thoughts

Earlier this year, the SCOTUS cut down the Chevron decision of 1984 while adjudicating Loper Bright Enterprises et al v. Raimondo, Secretary of Commerce, et al. In the Chevron decision, it was established that courts must defer to federal agencies when it comes to interpreting certain laws. The bent right-wing Roberts Court has now said, “Naw, uh.” The decision significantly changes how Federal regulatory agencies’ decisions are addressed in the judicial system and hamstring the ability to enforce Federal regulatory standards.

As if on cue, Iowa suffered heavy rains and flooding in the northwest corner. Agribusiness is huge there, and one area where Iowa has been pretty laconic is how animal manure is handled. Their solution was to put it in large ponds, creating a fecal soup. Guess what happens when floodwaters overtake fecal ponds? Yes, water drinking supply systems are contaminated.

The same sort of story was told in North Carolina a few years ago after a hurricane caused major flooding, so projections about what Iowa will experience, like skyrocketing e-coli levels, are known. Did Iowa learn from that? Hell, no.

So, to recap, in an age when regulatory enforcement is being blown up, an age where climate change is causing more extreme weather and droughts are endangering the nation’s water supply, the dangers and damages of such lax oversight is clearly demonstrated again and again. And yet, they won’t change, cause — money.

That’s the wisdom of the 21st century GOP.

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

Mood: Cuspsized

Fog and a cool 58 F greeted Churchill Valley on Wednesday, May 29, 2024. Today’s high will be lucky to break 66 F. Thunderstorms are possible.

Thunderstorms hit us again last night. I was out at my sister’s house for dinner. My BIL was grilling some serious beef, shrimp, and chicken. The smell of rain lingered in the air. Chonky gray clouds cruised overhead.

Rain broke, soft at first, warning shots, but the serious stuff arrive about an hour later. Weather warnings lit the phones. An hour later, the storm had significantly decayed, but I encountered chunks of it while driving home.

I’m on the cusp of heading home. Flight is early tomorrow morning.

My feelings are on a trampoline of reactions. I look forward to being with my wife and fur buds. I look forward to taking on some adulting needs and getting to work on stalled projects.

But I’ll miss Mom and my sisters and BILs, and all the children. Sharing a time zone with them has been very satisfying.

I feel like the nation, even the world, is also on a cusp. Donald Trump’s criminal trial has reached the jury deliberations stage. Analysts, pundits, lawyers, and relatives are all given opinions about the outcome, and why. And then, regardless of the verdict, what’ll happen? We’re on the cusp of finding out.

We’re on summer’s cusp in the northern latitudes. Violent storms have been striking the U.S. Destruction is rising. Travel is disrupted. So are supply chains. 23 are dead in the U.S. People’s power has been cut off. Is this an aberration or the new climate change norm? We’re on cusp of learning.

Israel attacked Rafah on Sunday. ‘All eyes are on Rafah.’ What will happen there next? I’m not arguing the right of Israel to defend itself, the role of the U.S. and other nations, nor the reasons why Hamas launched their attack last October, triggering this latest season of death and destruction. I’m like many, wondering if we’re on the cusp of a greater conflagration.

While we’re at it, Russia continues its assault on Ukraine, and Ukraine fights back. The deaths mount. More NATO resources might get involved. Are we on the cusp of world war? Could this be the cusp of a long-feared nuclear war?

And we’re on the cusp in the U.S. of finding out how extreme the GOP will be to keep people from voting. We’re on the cusp of finding how much of democracy they’re willing to destroy to keep the voters silenced and stay in power.

Looks like we’re on the cusp of a long, historic summer.

Being on the cusp of so many possibilities incited The Neurons to fill the morning mental music (Trademark almost ready) with “Enter Sandman” by Metallic. I can see The Neurons’ reasoning: this summer could be a nightmare, and that’s what the 1991 sound is all ’bout.

Hey, ho, here we go. Be strong, stay safe, be well, and Vote Blue in 2024. Here’s the music video. My coffee tank has already been filled.

Cheers

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